News, Analysis and Perspective for Solution Providers and Technology Integrators

Continuum’s New Security Monitor ‘Empowers’ MSPs

Continuum’s new assessment tool, Empower, is easy for MSPs to put in front of their customers and easy for their customers to understand, says Brian Downey, senior director of security product management.

Continuum this week introduced Empower, a monitoring tool for MSPs that displays security gaps in a customer’s network, how its cyber security stacks up to similar-size businesses, and provides a dark web scan to see if the business or its employees has exposure to bad actors.

“What we tried to do with the assessment tool is we’ve really tried to focus in on something that was going to be simple and easy for the MSP to run and put in front of their client, but even more importantly very quickly be understood by the client, and then focus on driving a compelling event for the client to act upon,” Brian Downey, senior director of security product management at Continuum, told CRN.

“For end clients who don’t have a security background and don’t even have an IT background, that’s a really challenging thing to communicate,” Downey said. “When we approached this assessment tool, we approached it as ‘How do we drive that in a very simple and easy way for a client to understand?’”

Jesse Armstrong, president of Continuum partner Greystone Technology, an MSP in Fort Collins, Colo., said he sees the tool as a conversation starter and a potential sales driver.

“The industry has deployed enough fear tactics to customers, and enough of the SMBs are getting hit left and right with ‘security, security, security’ that I think it just becomes very confusing and paralyzing to them,” he told CRN. “This gives us something more concrete that we can go in and talk to an existing customer, or a new customer, show something specific and give them some actionable next steps.”

For many MSPs, he said, the first step is convincing customers that they could be at risk.

“In their mind, they bought a firewall two years ago, so aren’t they secure?” he said. “It helps us show that security goes beyond what’s in their local network.”

Empower also shows customers how their security compares to other organizations, he said, which can be an eye-opener.

“Business owners may not understand the technical details, but that sort of ‘how you compare to peers’ is kind of interesting,” Armstrong said. “It’s a little more digestible for a business owner than some of the technology mumbo jumbo. We can show them this is where other businesses their size are. That’s helpful.”

Continuum said Empower is available in two categories: Empower and Empower Plus. Both products give MSPs access to Continuum Security Assess, which identifies end-client security gaps and creates reports that illustrate those gaps. Armstrong said the product is a great way to talk with customers about Contiuum’s other security products as well.

Continuum said Empower users have access to discounts and licenses for the Continuum Security product suite and dark web monitoring. Empower Plus customers are granted SOC incident response support for up to two events per year.